The Rest Of Your Life

I just finished reading The Monk and the Riddle , on the recommendation of Paul from Rogue Amoeba. It’s a sort of business philosophy book by Randy Komisar (with writing help from Kent Lineback).

It was a surprisingly fast read. Enjoyable and inspirational. But let me summarize it in one sentence:

Stop wasting your time working on things you don’t love.

The two most recurring themes in the book are roughly “the journey is the reward,” and “how can you change your current work so you’d be willing to do it for the rest of your life?” He describes a malady that many of us are probably familiar with: the “deferred life plan.” This is the rationalization of present unhappiness as a mere means to an end. We’ll work for 40 years at a job we hate just so we can pursue our passion later in life.

Great food for thought, and especially pertinent in the wake of my recent article about the indie life. I tried to examine my own circumstances using these criteria, and it boils down to four basic desires. I want a job where I build cool apps, blog, exercise, and make music. Whenever inspiration strikes me. A tall order, I know. I’m not quite there, but am hopefully moving in the right direction.

What do you want to do for the rest of your life? Are you suffering under the deferred life plan?